Michael Rounce was 19 when he died in a motor vehicle crash, six troubled years after Mrs Rounce flicked open his maths book one day to find drawings about Denham that left her cold with fear.

But it wasn’t until four or five months ago, 25 years after their son’s death and at a meeting of some of paedophile priest John Denham’s 39 known victims, that Mr and Mrs Rounce discovered Michael might have been a target of some of the sadistic priest’s worst offending.

‘‘Michael’s been gone for 25 years but when I heard that, it was as if he’d died that day,’’ Mrs Rounce said yesterday, while weeping at the secrets her son took to his death.

Snatches of conversations with their son from years ago leave Mr and Mrs Rounce sobbing with guilt that they couldn’t see their son’s troubled behaviour, after the age of 12 when he first came in contact with Denham, was linked to sexual abuse by the priest.

Mrs Rounce spoke with her son about Denham many times, but Michael played down the priest’s approaches.

She weeps while recalling a conversation during his later teenage years.

‘‘I said to him, ‘I understand how you feel Michael’ and he said to me ‘No mum, you really don’t’.’’

Mr Rounce can barely speak about a relationship with his son that went from being open and close, to angry and distant.

He feels extraordinary guilt that he didn’t ‘‘see’’ his son was being sexually assaulted by a priest and teacher, in a Catholic school.

‘‘Being a father, you’re supposed to be there for your kids,’’ he said.

Mrs Rounce contacted her local parish priest in 1978 on the day she saw her son’s drawings of Denham in his text book.